Adam Walked the Earth 209,000 Years Ago, Scientists Claim

A new study claims that Adam roamed the earth a little earlier than what was previously believed. Our common male ancestor appeared some 209,000 years ago.

A study led by Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield claims that our most common male ancestor, 'Adam', roamed the Earth some 209,000 years ago, much earlier than what the scientists had assumed till date. Using conventional biological models, the scientists confirm that 'Adam' lived some 9000 years earlier than what the scientists had earlier calculated. This finding places 'Adam' within a similar time frame of his other half, 'Eve'.

Dr Dan Graur of the University of Houston was also a part of this study. Dr Elhaik along with Dr Graur refuted a previous study by the Arizona University, which said that the human Y chromosome originated in different species through interbreeding, dating 'Adam' to be twice as old.

Dr Elhaik said, "We have shown that the University of Arizona study lacks any scientific merit. In fact, their hypothesis creates a sort of 'space-time paradox 'whereby the most ancient individual belonging to Homo sapiens species has not yet been born. If we take the numerical results from previous studies seriously we can conclude that the past may be altered by the mother of 'Adam' deciding not to conceive him in the future, thus, bringing a retroactive end to our species."

A study from the Stanford University School of Medicine says that both Adam and Eve lived roughly during the same time frame and that the male ancestor existed between roughly 120,000 and 156,000 years ago whereas the women lived roughly between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago. Also they were not the only two people that roamed the Earth. Apparently, these Adam and Eve managed to pass on their genetic DNA down the line.

However, the latest study claims that the modern humans emerged in Africa slightly over 200,000 years ago. "It is obvious that modern humans did not interbreed with hominins living over 500,000 years ago. It is also clear that there was no single 'Adam' and 'Eve' but rather groups of 'Adams and 'Eves' living side by side and wandering together in our world."

Prior to this Dr Elhaik disproved the study on unity of Jewish genome and also challenged the ENCODE project on junk DNA.